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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870515">Below My Feet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOtherBucket/pseuds/TheOtherBucket'>TheOtherBucket</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Injury, Buried Alive, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Panic Attacks, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Whumptober 2020, no beta we die like Glenn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:14:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>856</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOtherBucket/pseuds/TheOtherBucket</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>With heavy casualties, the Eagles are forced to retreat. The battlefield is cleared of the wounded and all survivors have been accounted for. </p>
<p>Or so they thought.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Bernadetta wakes to a living nightmare.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Written for Whumptober Day 4: Buried Alive</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Whumptober 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Below My Feet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The weight on her chest was crushing. It was what she imagined being stepped on by a demonic beast would feel like, the slightest pressure from a massive armored foot enough to shatter ribs and puncture lungs. </p>
<p>Everything hurt. Bernadetta choked back a sob, body wracked with pain, and tried to open her eyes. Where was she? How did she— she squeezed her eyes shut again when her squirming dislodged a small clod of dirt from somewhere above her.</p>
<p>She tried to remember how she’d gotten here. Wherever here was. It was too dark to see anything and she couldn’t open her eyes again because there was dirt (<em>why was there dirt</em>) and she was pretty sure she could only feel one leg and there was something <em>heavy</em>—</p>
<p>
  <em>Deep breaths. Calm down Bernie. Think.</em>
</p>
<p>She inhaled shallow, shuddering breaths through her nose only to cough at the pain in her ribs. More dirt dislodged and the coughing turned to sputtering when she accidentally inhaled. </p>
<p>Her mind refused to cooperate, giving her only flashes of swords clashing, shields raised. The tension of the bowstring pulled taut against her shoulder, cutting into callused fingers. Dorothea screaming. The bitter, metallic taste of blood in her mouth. </p>
<p>Was she… dead?</p>
<p>She tried to reach up to feel her face, but her hand was tangled in something soft and sticky. Like silk coated in tar. </p>
<p>… that wasn’t dirt. </p>
<p>Bernadetta’s breathing sped up and it felt like her heart was skipping every other beat. Her mind screamed at her to yank her hand away, to <em>move</em>, but she found herself paralyzed as the pieces began to coalesce into horrifying clarity.</p>
<p>She wasn’t dead.</p>
<p>But the person the hair belonged to was.</p>
<p>Her scream died in her throat, only the tiniest whimper forcing its way out as she fought for breath between gasping sobs. </p>
<p>Slowly, gingerly, she pulled her hand free. The feeling lingered on her skin, though, and a shudder ripped through her. She wondered, through the fog of pain and terror, which one of her classmates that had been. Dorothea? She had been close enough for Bernadetta to hear her scream over the screech of steel. Or was it Ferdinand? His glorious red hair, his pride and joy, charred and matted and caked in a battlefield’s worth of blood. She tried to picture his face, but the only image her mind would produce was jittery, one moment Ferdinand the next Dorothea, sometimes both. Their face was a mask of agony, blood pooling at the corner of their mouth and staining their lips as crimson as their banner.</p>
<p>“No! No no no Bernie, stop that!” </p>
<p>She tested the packed earth above her, pointedly ignoring the fact that she had only not suffocated already because of the … body— she swallowed hard— pinning her to something else that felt suspiciously soft and un-dirtlike…</p>
<p>Dirt shook loose and into her hair, followed by a soft thumping sound not quite overhead, but nearby. </p>
<p>She tried to listen over the sound of her ragged breathing. </p>
<p>“H-hello?” Her voice was weak, shattered. “Some-somebody help!” she sobbed. </p>
<p>She’d <em>tried</em>, but her heart was a war drum in her chest and the tears flowed freely when she could no longer hear anything. Not even muted footsteps to prove that someone had actually been there. </p>
<p>“Stupid Bernie, can’t even die properly,” she squeaked through the tears. She shoved her hands back into the dirt, pulling and wrenching at dirt and rocks both, gasping for breath when the searing pain of fingernails tearing free blazed down her spine. </p>
<p>She kept digging. Digging until something gave and then there was only dirt. It weighed more than the body pinning her to what she could only assume was more bodies. It filled in around her and it seemed multiple lifetimes later that the rushing stopped and the last of the earth settled. </p>
<p>She stilled, not daring to move, not daring to breathe. </p>
<p>It was a moment later that she realized she <em>couldn’t</em> breathe.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Did you hear something?” Dorothea turned to Ferdinand, who stood with his back to her, matted hair caught in the breeze. </p>
<p>It was just the two of them now, resigned to scouring the field for stragglers before the long march back. She hadn’t seen the point; the graves had been dug and filled, any survivors had long since been dragged to a healer, and looters had pilfered anything of value.  </p>
<p>“It is merely the wind, preying on our exhaustion.” Ferdinand sighed, his weariness evident in the way his shoulders slumped forward and how he was putting most of his weight on one leg. He’d come close to bleeding out, pinned beneath his horse behind enemy lines. It was a miracle she’d made it to him in time. Others hadn’t been so lucky. </p>
<p>The sun was hot overhead and ordinarily Dorothea would be grateful for the wind whipping at her hair, but today it carried the rotting stench of death for miles.</p>
<p>“There’s no one here.” She waited for Ferdinand to join her as he seemed to take an eternity to come to the same conclusion himself before they returned to camp. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was quick and unbeta'd and I really had to get it out of my system. </p>
<p>Except more Whumptober trickling in over the next couple of weeks!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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